Science by Poetry, Fiction by Geometry: Interdisciplinary Reading and Writing

Beyond the common denominator of language itself is the fact that all true knowledge is interdisciplinary. [...]a primary educational objective should be the proliferation of interdisciplinary courses in teaching students how to think. [...]Asimov's essay is useful in teaching students of literature to persevere beyond the frustration of a first reading, by assuring them that, if they are properly prepared before reading and if they allow time for "involuntary thinking" after reading, a moment of understanding will come. What she means is that we have physical limitations even in our eyes and brain: "A nightmare network of ganglia, charged and firing without my knowledge, cuts and splices what I do see," she says, "editing it for my brain" (1184). [...]unaware, we edit out much of reality in a scientific process analogous to a writer's daily work. The Second Law says that entropy (the measure of chaos in the world) never decreases. [...]when order is imposed somewhere, disorder (chaos) increases elsewhere.